This isn't real, it can't be
by Fullmoontonightt
Summary: Stiles' nightmares are getting worse, but what if he dreams that Derek needs his help? That Stiles has to go and save his life? Set after 3B pilot, 3x13. Sterek. Starts of with angsty nightmare Stiles but ends with sterek fluff.


It had happened again, he was back in the forest. But it was different this time, darker. He could barely make out the trees. Chills ran over his body. With difficulty he took a step forward, his body felt heavy, as if he was made of stone. He was barefoot, he could feel all the leaves underneath his feet, crumbling. Then the same as last time happened, bright lights illuminated the scene. They were almost blinding, he had to cover his eyes, but the light still peeked through his fingers, like it was trying as hard as it could to reach his eyes. Then all of a sudden the light changed, it went from bright, blinding white to an orange glow. He felt heat reaching his skin, almost in a burning way. Quickly he lowered his hands and saw what he had suspected, a fire had broken out in the forest, burning up all the trees. He turned around and tried to run. But his feet didn't respond, they didn't move, they seemed as if they were stuck to the ground. When he tried to look down, his neck didn't respond, neither did his arms when he tried to lift them. He knew this feeling, he was paralyzed. But instead of last time, he was still standing, like he had been frozen on the spot. He was freaking out, this was way worse. On top of that, he felt the heat of the fire increasing, it was coming towards him, he could even see it from the corner of his eyes. He was now officially scared to death. His mind was screaming at him: 'Run, run while you still can!' but his body didn't listen, he couldn't move, he just kept on standing there, as if he was waiting for the fire to reach him. 'Come on Stiles, you can move, it's all not real, you can still move.' he told himself, but it didn't help, his body still wasn't responding to anything his mind was telling him. The fire was coming closer, the heat had began to be unbearable, his face was covered in sweat. He tried to move one last time, but got the same result. This had to be the worst way to go down, not being able to fight back. There was nothing he could do now, literally nothing. Heat was washing around him like it was air and it was becoming really difficult to breath, so he took one big last tug of air and closed his eyes. Then he was swirled around and thrown into darkness. The dream was chancing.

Stiles was in some sort of pool of black liquid now. He tried to turn around and sighed of relieve, thank god, his body was responding again. But where on earth was he? He studied the liquid, it looked really familiar for some reason. It was pitch black and rather thin. He thought about it and then it clicked, it was what Derek had coughed up that one time he was wounded, at Deaton's.

Seriously? He was in an ocean of Derek's puke? Groose.

He didn't see some sort of ending anywhere, no piece of land where he could get out, it was just the liquid and him. At first he didn't know what to do, but staying in the same place didn't seem like a good idea, even though the thought of swimming in Derek's puke disgusted him, he had to do something. He took off and felt something tickle his leg. Before he had fully processed it he was pulled under. He was pulled in deeper and deeper, no matter how hard he tried to get back to the surface, whatever was pulling him down was a lot stronger. Every time he was close to the surface, when he could see the light of the sun, he was pulled down again. After this happened about five times, he started panicking, he had pretty much given all he had. He was running out of breath. He knew he was going to have to open up any moment now. Stiles knew he wasn't going to last much longer and was terrified. Then he remembered the conversion he had with ms. Morrel. Not giving up would give him more time, so he was going to fight. And he did, he swam up with all the power he had and actually reached the surface. Only to be pulled down again, but this time a lot faster. Then he saw nothing but pure darkness and knew that the dream was chancing again.

He landed on a floor. An actual floor, he wanted to kiss that floor right there. It felt amazing having solid ground beneath him. In this case, beneath his face. But Stiles didn't care, this felt a lot better than anything else and he still had to catch his breath. His adventure in the 'ocean' had really cost him a lot of energy, so he just wanted to lay down for a while. But then he heard a familiar voice.

"Stiles?"

"Wait..Derek?" Stiles stood up and turned around. He saw Derek chained up against a wall. He had been stripped down, only wearing his jeans. Stiles eyes lingered on Derek's muscles for a while before looking him in the eyes. This was still part of the nightmare right? It had to be, how else would he get here? But what was Derek doing here?

"Seriously? _Stiles_ is here to save us?" Oh, Peter was here too, Stiles hadn't even noticed him.

"Could you just be glad _someone_'s here." Derek growled out, without looking Stiles in the eye.

"How did he even get here?" Peter again.

Stiles couldn't hear what Derek was answering, because all of a sudden he got this eerie feeling, like something bad was going to happen. Something horrible. He looked around the room, which was some kind of creepy amateur laboratory. There were all kind of electric devices, but also some ordinary torture elements, you know, the usual, saws and stuff. Then there was water everywhere and the walls were filled with dirty stains. Oh, yes, something was definitely going to happen here. Stiles' breathing was getting heavy. _Why_? Just, why is all this happening to him? These nightmares have been tormenting him for days now, they need to stop. Can't they just stop? Why won't they stop? Stiles' breathing was getting heavier and heavier, his hands were shaking, oh shit, he was having a panic attack. He grabbed one of the desks and tried to keep his balance.

"Stiles?" Derek said. "Are you okay?"

"This isn't real. It's all just a dream. I'm not really here. This isn't real."

"What is he talking about?" Stiles heard Peter say.

"Stiles, this is real. You are really here." Derek said, his voice filled with some emotion Stiles couldn't place.

"No, no it's not. This is just another part of my nightmare, I'm not really here and you aren't real." Stiles still had trouble breathing, he had a lot of difficulty talking, could only get out one word at a time. His voice probably sounded like one of those robots, taking long breaks between the words.

"But we are Stiles, we've been here for days now, you have to help us get out of here." Derek said carefully.

Stiles breathing was slowly going back to normal. But his panic hadn't disappeared, he still needed the desks support. "This can't be real, it can't be. I have to wake up. " his voice went from talking with huge gaps to yelling, because he felt like that was the only way he could reach his subconscious. "Wake up! Wake the fuck up!" Stiles placed his hands on his forehead. "Please! Just wake up!"

"Stiles!" Derek was also yelling now. "Calm down! Stiles! Look at me!"

Stiles calmed down a little, taking control of his breathing and looked Derek in the eye.

"This isn't a dream. You're here Stiles, you're really here. I have no idea how, but you are." Derek continued, now on a softer, almost soothing tone. "This isn't some sort of nightmare, it's all real and you have to help us, we've been captured and we need to get out."

Derek (and Peter) looked at Stiles expectantly. Derek had really calmed Stiles down, so he nodded and walked towards them, but just before he reached them, he was pulled back into the darkness.

* * *

Stiles awoke in his bed, drained in sweat. He didn't wake up screaming this time, probably because he ended with kind of a peaceful scene. Just thinking about it made Stiles sit up immediately. That last dream had been so different from the others. That combined with how eager (dream)Derek had been convincing him that it wasn't a dream makes him wonder if it really wasn't a dream. What if it was real? Could it be?

After thinking about it, Stiles decided it wasn't real. Because last night he dreamed that he talked to Scott and that Lydia had been here, so these dreams can fake pretty much everything. And if you think about it, it isn't even that strange that Derek was there, Stiles cared about the guy after all. Sort of. I think.

Having convinced himself with those thoughts he left for school.

* * *

"Stiles! Wait up!" Stiles heard his best friend say as he climbed out of his jeep.

"Scottie boy." Stiles started walking towards the entrance, Scott was tagging along but then pulled him aside.

"Stiles, it's getting worse. It happened again last night, I almost shifted in front of my dad."

"What? For real? You need to get this back under control or it's gonna go totally wrong, soon."

"I know." Scott sighed. "But with losing Allison, I kind of lost my anchor too. So it's so much harder to keep it in check."

Stiles hated seeing his friend like this, all miserable and heartbroken. He really needed to cheer Scott up, but with everything what's been going on, it's just been hard to think about things as broken hearts. "You'll be okay Scott, we'll find an even better anchor."

"Thanks dude." Scott said, still kind of depressed. "How about you? Had any nightmares?"

"Actually.. something really strange happened last night." Stiles paused. "I dreamed about Derek and Peter being locked up in some sort of basement."

"Why would you dream about that?"

"I was wondering the same thing, do you think it means something?"

"I don't know, did you talk with them?"

"I actually did." Stiles scratched his head. "And well, they didn't say a lot of useful stuff, they mainly just tried to convince me that I wasn't dreaming."

"Really?" Scott said confused. "Well, maybe you weren't."

"You think so?"

"We can go search in the afternoon if you want."

"They could be anywhere Scott, seriously anywhere and we don't even know if it was real."

"I know, but with what Deaton said yesterday, I don't want to take this too lightly. So let's just search the area here, just to be sure."

Stiles was presently surprised. Scott becoming an alpha had really made him more mature. His bestie was growing up. "Scott, that's a pretty good idea. Very good actually. It would make me feel better about the whole situation."

"Then let's do it. Today after school?"

"Sounds good to me."

* * *

That afternoon Scott and Stiles are driving around in the jeep, Scott doing his head-out-of-the-window-like-a-golden-retriever-thing and for a little while Stiles doesn't feel the pressure of the nightmares/daydreams, just him and his buddy cruising around town, possibly saving the day.

"Stiles, I think I got them, they're close." Scotts voice cut through Stiles' thoughts.

"No way." Stiles said disbelieving, he had kind of eliminated the option of his dream being real, so finding out Peter and Derek were actually here somewhere came as a shock.

"Wait, Stiles," Scott said while pulling his head back into the car. "Did you say they were locked up in this old basement?"

"Yep, it looked like some kind of torture chamber."

"Then I know exactly where they are."

* * *

A couple of minutes later Scott and Stiles stood in an _empty _basement, underneath the Hale house.

"Wow, Scott you never fail to impress me with those keen werewolf senses of yours." Stiles said sarcastically while rolling his eyes.

"Shut up Stiles. This was where Kate kept Derek that one time, I just figured they'd be kept here, you know, it's ironic and all that." Scott paused looking really confused. " I don't understand, I smell them so clearly now, they have to be somewhere around here."

"Sorry bro, but I might have just dreamed it, remember? I've been having so much weird dreams lately, it could just have been another one of those."

"But then explain why their scent is here."

"Yeah.. hadn't gotten that far yet." Stiles said while looking around, this room did have similarities to the one in his dream, but it also had differences. He then noticed a huge stain on the wall, the once white paint had turned into a stinky brown. It looked kind of the same as the one in his dream. Wait, it was the same. He remembered there being a really big stain, exactly the same as this one.

"Do you think stains like these can be identical on both sides of the wall?" he questioned.

"I don't know, maybe. Why? Do you recognize it?"

"I think so."

"Let's check it out." Scott walked towards the wall, raising his arm, as if to punch through the wall. But Stiles grabbed him and held him in place.

"What do you think you're doing, you can't just punch a hole in the wall."

"Of course I can, we need to check it out right? And who would notice?"

Yeah, he had a pretty good point there. Just as Stiles was about to release Scotts arm, he felt him stiffen beneath him. "What's wrong?" he whispered.

"Someone's coming."

Oh shit. Oh fucking shit. We need to hide, we need to hide like right now. Panicked Stiles looked around the room, but there was no good place to hide, well they had to go somewhere, so he just went for this dark corner behind the gate. Still holding unto Scott, he raced towards it and lowered themselves. They crawled behind a broken machine which was standing there.

Stiles was almost pissing his pants, this was exactly like one of those nerve-racking scenes that you always see in movies, except he'd never expected to end up in one. He tried to breath as quietly as possible, but when he heard footsteps entering the room, that was becoming rather difficult. He could hear every footstep and really had to control himself not to look. Then the person lifted something and they heard a door being opened.

"Seriously there's a door?" Stiles whispered when he heard the door fall shut.

They had both gotten up and they could now clearly see the door, it had been hidden behind some trash.

"What do we do? Go in or wait?"

"The guy wasn't a werewolf so I can handle him, let's go in."

"Scott, you sure you're up for fighting someone right now? You can't shift properly."

"Who knows how long he'll be in there."

Then they both heard electric shocks coming from the other side of the door.

"If we can hear it all the way here, it must be on such high voltage." Stiles said, he could almost feel the electricity running over his skin.

"I say we go in Stiles, he's hurting them."

"Wait a sec." Stiles looked around for something he could use as a weapon, he forgot to take his beloved bat, and found this iron bar. He swung it through the air and put it down dramatically. "Let's go."

Scott gave him the you-are-such-an-idiot-look and then proceeded the door. He kicked it in and stormed inside.

Stiles sighed. "And there goes the element of surprise."

Stiles also stormed inside, only to find that he was in the exact same room as in his dream, Derek and Peter included. The walls were still dirty and all the torture thingies were here. In the middle of the room Scott was fighting this guy, probably the evil one, Scott facing Stiles. And to be honest it wasn't looking good for Scott, Stiles could see he wanted to shift but couldn't . Scott knew he'd lose control. Stiles then realized his friend had being going through some though shit, I mean, yes his nightmares were the torture, but at least they didn't affect like his second nature.

At that moment the guy kicked Scott in the stomach and Scott fell down. Scott tried to get up, only to be kicked down again, seeing this physically hurt Stiles. It reminded him of his nightmares, he could see Scott fighting, but not being strong enough to win. But no one gets to make his best friend go through that, especially not when he's there to help. Stiles took a step forward, lifting the heavy iron bar high up in the air and smacked the guy down. Knock out. He saw Peter looking at him, his face filled with unbelief.

"That's right, Stiles is here to save you."

* * *

Later that night he was brushing his teeth, after Scott and he had gotten Derek and Peter out of the creepy basement, Stiles had gone home with Scott. Scott wasn't feeling too great so Stiles decided to cheer him up by playing some video games. It was just like old times. For a while they both forgot the mess their lives were.

Stiles walked out of the bathroom, only to see a dark figure standing in the corner of his room. Startled he lost his balance and almost crashed into his nightstand. Also, he might have screamed a little. Just a little.

The figure laughed and Stiles realised exactly who it was.

"Not funny Derek, you scared the hell out of me."

"Sorry," Derek said, stepping out of the shadow, not looking sorry at all.

"Yeah right." Stiles said while sitting down on his bed.

"I just wanted to thank you."

"No need," Stiles looked up to Derek "you would have done the same for me."

It fell silent in the room, but not in an uncomfortable way, it was actually sort of nice.

"How did you get there?" Derek said. "The first time, I mean."

"I don't even know myself." Stiles paused, taking a deep breath. "I've been having these dreams."

"Nightmares?"

"Yeah, they're pretty bad."

"Are they always like this, a real situation?" Derek asked, obviously confused.

"No, this was a first for me too."

Derek sat down next to Stiles. "What are they usually like?"

"They're all different, but in most I end up fighting for my life. They're always so lifelike, which makes them even scarier. I haven't had a good night of sleep in weeks. They are just there every night. They keep coming back." Stiles was getting emotional. "I'm afraid to even go to sleep."

Derek was quiet after that, which Stiles took as a bad thing. "I'm sorry for bothering you with it, I'll just have to learn to deal with it."

Derek put his hand on Stiles' knee. "We'll find a solution for it, okay? You shouldn't have to live with this."

Stiles looked at him with astonishment, which made Derek pull back his hand.

"Don't ." Stiles said while grabbing Derek's hand. Derek then looked at him with an expression Stiles couldn't read. He felt his cheeks warm up. "Thanks for being so nice to me."

"You were the one that got me out of that basement."

Stiles laughed. "Yeah, I guess I was. How did you guys get there in the first place?"

"Yeah, that's a long story."

"I have time."

Derek smiled at that and kicked his shoes off. He shifted on Stiles' bed , his back was now against the wall and his legs were spread across the mattress. Stiles wanted to lie down too, but since Derek legs were everywhere, he would have to lie in between Derek's legs and he wasn't sure if Derek would be comfortable with him doing that. Derek must have seen his hesitation because he pulled Stiles against his chest. Stiles was happily surprised and laid his head comfortably between Derek's chest bone and shoulder blade. Derek started his story about how they were captured, complaining about Peters stupidity. Stiles smiled and snuggled further into Derek's warm chest.

After a while he fell asleep, without having any nightmares.


End file.
